💡 100 Impact Solutions VCs Want You to Pitch Them

The global impact investing market is estimated to be over $1 trillion in assets under management. And there are hundreds, if not thousands of investors in the space writing cheques for Stealth to Series B+ Climate startups. 

But for startups, identifying which investors could be next to invest in your startup is a time-taking, painstaking process. 

And so to help Founders fast-track their next fundraise and add new investors to their radar, we caught up with 35 impact investors worldwide to hear about the 100 solutions they want to invest in next. Are you working on the solution they are looking for?

These solutions include:

🌳 Precision reforestation
🌾 Low-carbon fertilizers
🪫 Effective battery upcycling
🌬️ Advanced carbon removals
🛠️ Decarbonising steel manufacturing
⭕ New materials for the circular economy
🔨 Mineral extraction, processing and recycling
⚡ Hardware grid solutions to fuel the energy transition
➕ 92 climate-critical solutions…

Better still, if you’re looking to turbocharge your first/next fundraise, come and join us at the HackSummit in NYC this December where hundreds of investors across climate deep tech will be attending and ready to learn more about your solutions.

↘ Use code FUNDME20 to save 20% on your pass.

Plus if you’re looking for investment in AgriFood, head this way to hear from 25 VCs.

100 Impact Solutions These VCs Want You to Pitch Them

Guy Vidra at Collaborative Fund

• Sustainable Critical Mineral Extraction: Minerals are at the bedrock of technological advancements and are an inextricable element of economic development and critical infrastructure. Potential substitution doesn’t exist for some minerals and their uses — sustainable and enhanced mineral extraction solutions are a necessity to build an electrified future.

• AI for Novel Materials: The development of novel materials is crucial to build a more efficient, resilient and sustainable future, and poses a fantastic application for AI — accelerating development timelines and reducing costs in innovation, driving both economic returns and positive environmental impact.

• Energy Utilization for Data Centers: With data centers poised to consume almost 9% of the country’s electricity by 2030, there are a plethora of opportunities to drive returns and impact be it through leveraging AI to reduce energy consumption, cooling methodologies, utilization of excess heat for local applications or improved overall resource management.

Anna Raptis at Amplifica Capital

• Energy Transition: As the solar sector experiences rapid growth, the demand for energy storage and grid optimization technologies has never been more urgent. We are excited to see more solutions contributing to the decarbonization of the electricity infrastructure.

• WaterTech Solutions: As populations increase and climate change exacerbates water-related issues, innovative technologies that enhance water conservation, infrastructure and management become critical. These solutions not only ensure access to clean water for communities but also support sustainable agriculture, industry, and ecosystems.

• Carbon Management / Offsetting Along the Food Value Chain: The food value chain, from production to distribution, is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Investing in these types of solutions not only mitigate the environmental impact but also drive efficiency, reduce costs, and meet growing consumer demand for sustainable practices, ultimately contributing to a more resilient and climate-friendly food system.

Romain Diaz at Satgana

• Fostering Greener AI: The rapid growth of AI is driving significant advancements, but it also leads to increased energy consumption and GHG emissions. Innovations such as energy-efficient computing, integration of renewable energies and valorizing heat waste, will contribute to a greener AI.

• Tackling Food Waste: Billions of tons of food are discarded annually, squandering resources (land, water, and energy), hence worsening climate change and biodiversity, all while being a social issue given world hunger. Since food waste happens all across the value chain, we need a broad range of solutions leveraging software / AI and hardware / IoT, from production to consumption, to foster a sustainable and equitable food system.

• Everything Fungi: Fungi and mycelium show promising outlooks due to their versatile roles in ecosystems and technology, from decomposing organic waste, to soil health, reducing landfill impact, breaking down pollutants and holding unique materials properties.

• Financing Solutions for Regen Ag: Regenerative agriculture improves soil health, increases biodiversity, and enhances carbon sequestration, but requires upfront investment that traditional financing may not cover. Innovative financing mechanisms for Regen Ag (beyond carbon credits) are crucial because they provide the capital needed to transition from conventional farming practices to more sustainable methods with a long term outlook.

Martin Karschkes at Lightrock

• Life Cycle Assessment Software: Governments, regulators, consumers, investors, and industry players are increasingly pushing for climate action; value chain carbon transparency is urgently needed for these stakeholders to make meaningful changes. Value chain carbon transparency is enabling valuable use cases through carbon-informed business decision making, incl. net zero commitment tracking, sourcing, regulatory response, decarbonisation, and consumer choice. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) software can provide both: transparency of the CO2 footprint on a product level and actionable insights on how to improve the product design / sourcing of materials to reduce the CO2 footprint. We expect significant further acceleration in adopting LCA solutions with the new EU Digital Product Passport regulation.

•  Predictive Maintenance Solutions: With the increased adoption of sensor technology, industrial software solutions provide insights into manufacturers' machines, their processes, and operations. AI algorithms can recognise patterns and precisely predict faults, errors, and emergencies on the manufacturing line far in advance, informing the manufacturing teams to successfully prevent faults from happening. Predictive maintenance extends asset lifecycles, reducing costs and waste of broken/old machines by lowering the frequency of replacement, as well as lowering the need for spare parts and energy used for retrofitting, and minimising scrap related to machine malfunctions. 

• Biodiversity Net Gain Solutions: Biodiversity net gain is an essential strategy for ensuring that habitats for wildlife are healthier and more diverse. Regulators in the UK (and the EU is in advanced discussions) are requiring biodiversity to become an integral part of land development plans with a vision of progress that includes nature recovery and promotes more sustainable use of resources. A diverse range of stakeholders — land managers, developers, local planning authorities, and more — play key roles in implementing BNG. These stakeholders are required to baseline, assess, and monitor biodiversity on the respective land - a task that can be time-consuming and potentially subjective. Satellite-based technology solutions can offer a quick, robust, and cost-effective way to understand the ecological value of land, thus providing a streamlined, objective approach to biodiversity assessment.

Nathalie Moral at Clima Now

• Advanced Carbon Removals: Carbon removals that cover the entire value chain from capture to storage. Our focus is on solutions with potential for low-cost carbon removal with a proven MRV backbone. These solutions are ideally inspired by nature but tech-enhanced to boost overall removal capacity such as Enhanced Rock Weathering, Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement (OAE) or (Micro-)algae Cultivation. We are also looking for solutions that help closing the MRV data and approaches gap of Carbon Removal.

• Liberated Energy Storage for Net Zero: The next two decades demand massive deployment of long-duration energy storages (LDES) to achieve a cost-effective net-zero energy transition and grid resilience. We invest in solutions that promise low storage costs while also offering positive environmental impacts by using non-critical materials or repurposing existing EV battery packs, all to enable decentralized and independent grid communities.

• Food Safety and Soil Health: We need to produce 60% more food for a world population of 10 billion by 2050. We invest in promising solutions that decarbonize the current agricultural food production (agrochemicals) while boosting farmers' economies and soil health. We support innovations like non-synthetic microbial fertilizers that reduce long-term dependency on agrochemicals, ultimately promoting a more sustainable and resilient agricultural sector. 

Paul Moriou at Serena

• Precision Reforestation: Deforestation, responsible for up to 15% of global emissions, is one of the greatest threats to our climate. The next frontier in reforestation is precision. By deploying AI and satellite technology, we can pinpoint degraded areas, prioritize native species, and optimize carbon sequestration efforts. With these tools, we can realistically scale reforestation to capture billions of tons of CO2 annually, making a massive dent in global emissions. This isn’t just a new way to plant trees—it’s a systemic shift in how we heal our planet’s lungs.

• AI-driven Wildfire Detection: Over the past four decades, wildfires have surged fivefold in frequency, resulting in $50B+ in damages every year. The increasing intensity and frequency of these events are clear markers of a changing climate. Advanced AI-powered detection systems offer a proactive solution. Real-time camera networks, paired with AI, now identify fire risks at inception, predicting their paths and enabling faster, smarter firefighting responses. These systems will be crucial as we battle the rise of extreme fires, saving both ecosystems and lives.

• Autonomous Electric Freight: Freight transport, responsible for nearly 8% of global emissions, is a major barrier to achieving net-zero goals. The next evolution in logistics is autonomous electric freight. These battery-powered rail vehicles utilize existing infrastructure to move goods faster, safer, and more efficiently than traditional diesel trucks and trains. By optimizing infrastructure utilization and eliminating the need for human operators, this technology can reduce freight emissions by up to 90%, offering a path to improve global logistics and create a zero-emission supply chain.

Florent Nduwayezu, Syndicate Investor

• Food Waste: Addressing the 40% food waste in countries like Kenya is critical for ensuring food security, especially with Africa's rapidly growing population. Startups focused on innovative waste reduction solutions can play a key role in this effort.

• Climate Financing and Carbon: Startups pioneering innovative financial models that leverage carbon offset solutions are making financing more affordable and accessible for businesses contributing to climate action.

• AgriFood: Leveraging AI and satellite data to provide environmental insights specific to Africa is essential for developing effective climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies tailored to the continent's unique challenges.

Dinesh Ganesan at ArcTern Ventures

• Industrial Heat: This has a massive carbon footprint but is still relatively underfunded. Despite a potentially painful sales process, cleaning up industry will have a positive trickle on effect as it forms the backbone of everything we use and see around us. Both software and deeptech solutions can succeed here. 

• Minerals: The more we electrify, the more pressing the solutions for this sector become. From lithium to rare earths - we need more innovation within resource extraction, processing, and recycling - not only for the climate impact, but also securitization across the supply chain. 

• Fintech for Climate: Pricing climate impact continues to be an uphill battle. Any product that helps to directly or indirectly place a realistic dollar value on GHG emissions will make it easier for future climate innovation across all industries. This can be within insurance, weather, risk management, corporate finance, etc.

Steven Finn at Siddhi Capital

• Solving Industry Problems: Cash is tight. Big companies are moving at what feels like a snail's pace as they review a worlds worth of innovation and think about what's next for them. This takes forever, and it's no time to focus on saving the world. If you want to sell your product to an established corporate, the best way is to have a product that solves an urgent problem they are actively feeling pain from. Anything short of that is a one way ticket to the innovation department, which probably moves slower than the rest of the organization. Great examples in FoodTech are those solving for supply chains in current crisis, like eggs and chocolate.

• Precision Fermentation Infrastructure - I say this in every one of these articles, but there are two problems here. The world has limited capacity today for precision fermentation for food. As more food is fermented, there will be a capacity crunch. More importantly, what's available today is the wrong infrastructure for scale. If it seems like what's out there is fine for your needs, you either have a very high value product or you haven't fully thought through scale. 

• Food as Medicine - we're focused on high value, low inclusion ingredients. Not much checks those boxes better than low inclusion ingredients that are produced and regulated as food but have clinically backed pharma grade functional claims associated with them. Many consumers are buying on front of pack claims vs ingredient decks, and some of these ingredients focused on things like inflammation and gut health pack a huge punch at a great margin without requiring facilities to be built from scratch to get there.

Carlota Ochoa at Extantia Capital

• Plastic Recycling: Primary plastic production is a gigatonne emissions problem and because we have no good end of life solutions, plastic pollution poses severe risks to both ecological and human health. Technologies that can solve this problem through effective and sustainable recycling are now facing significant tailwinds from supportive legislation such as directives coming out of the European Green Deal and the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles. 

• Alternative Materials: An alternative solution to the plastic pollution problem. Textile manufacturers and fashion houses are showing increasing willingness to experiment with new, sustainable materials. Not only are these solving circularity requirements and reducing company's reliance on plastics, but they are offering product differentiation by opening up new design possibilities and can now compete and surpass plastics and leathers on performance KPIs. 

• Low-Carbon Fertilizers: Traditional fertilizer production is an enormous source of emissions that needs to be addressed urgently. Industry is waking up to this, in particular in the EU, where new emissions tariffs on imports of fertilizer make a compelling economic case for low-emissions alternatives. 

Sam Baker at Planet A Ventures

• Edge-AI for Industrial Decarbonisation: Retrofitting heavy infrastructure like cement plants and steel mills is costly, with asset amortisation periods spanning 20-40 years. While novel hardware is crucial for the long term, immediate emissions reductions lie in untapped data. According to various reports, less than 10% of industrial data collected today is used for decision making. We need to decentralise AI training and inference, especially for industrial applications. Localised models utilising federated learning also have an impact advantage - just like an EV range model trained with data about your driving is more accurate, industrial IoT devices could massively boost optimisation potential by training on local parameters.

• Plastic Recycling: Current methods are costly, complex and degrade material properties, limiting reuse. We need next generation recycling technologies that can be a drop-in solution for operators to upgrade their recycling capabilities while reducing processing costs. Virgin-quality circular plastics with flexible material properties are an essential part of the future sustainable economy.

• Manufacturing Optimisation: Manufacturing inefficiencies drive 20-30% excess energy and material usage globally according to bodies like the WEF and IEA, stalling decarbonisation efforts. Solutions lie in automating the implementation of powerful lean manufacturing principles pioneered by giants like Toyota and GE, to cut waste and energy consumption whilst increasing productivity. Data-driven, contextually aware software can drive tangible action in the "Genba". This optimisation will be critical for achieving sustainable manufacturing at scale.

Fabian Erici at Norrsken VC

• Grid Technology: The shift from a centralized, controllable electricity grid to a decentralized, more volatile system driven by renewable energy presents new challenges. As the demand for electricity rises due to electrification and growing prosperity, the grid must handle circumstances it was never designed for. To address these challenges, we need solutions that enhance the grid’s capacity and efficiency, from advanced optimization software and increased flexibility to new hardware innovations that can bolster grid performance.

• Decarbonizing Heavy Industry: Heavy industry is responsible for a significant portion of global emissions and faces growing pressure to decarbonize. While there are still many opportunities to reduce emissions with incremental improvements, transformative change requires investment in disruptive technologies. For example, we’ve invested in Alcemy, which leverages data and innovative methods to significantly lower CO2 emissions from conventional cement production by reducing clinker use. We’ve also backed Material Evolution, which is pioneering new cement technology that brings us much closer to net-zero.

• Sustainable Computing: As cloud computing capacity surges—projected to double by 2026, surpassing 1 TWh of energy consumption—driven by AI, cloud migration, and blockchain, there is an urgent need for more energy-efficient data centers. We are seeking solutions that address both energy consumption and performance optimization, from innovative software and chip designs to advanced cooling technologies and large-scale implementation of cutting-edge green infrastructure.

Anna Trendewicz at Future Energy Ventures

• Batteries: Increasing shares of decentralized, intermittent renewables create a growing need for battery energy storage for system balancing e.g. IEA expects c.a. 1,200 GW by 2030 in the NZE Scenario (14x growth). Software solutions for integrating batteries into the power system, lifetime extension, safety, and quality control will have a major role to play.

• Renovation of Buildings: New energy efficiency regulations such as the Gebäudenergiegesetz (GEG) in Germany, revised Energy Performance of Buildings Directive in the EU provide a boost to accelerate renovations in both C&I and residential sectors. Software tools can help with analyzing decarbonization scenarios, finding optimal solutions, and accelerating procurement and installation.

• Supply Chain Tracking: EU’s Digital Product Passport regulation creates a need for solutions to more accurately track supply chain data around product sustainability, materials and circular practices (e.g. repair, recycling). Early adopting sectors today are textiles and consumer electronics. Batteries and construction products are also prioritized due to their high environmental impact.

Harry Morgan at 7percent Ventures

• Make-to-order Fashion: Overproduction is a huge issue in the fashion industry. 30% of garments are never sold, with another 30% sold at a discount. This is largely due to issues with sizing and demand forecasting. With huge advancement in avatar generation, virtual-try-ons, and adaptable robotic training, autonomous production chains could usher in a new era of make-to-order fashion, with minimal waste. 

• Near-Zero Energy Compute: 90% of the world’s data was created in the last two years, and every two years, the volume of data across the world doubles in size. This comes with a huge increase in demand for computing power and data storage - both of which require energy and cooling to operate. New architectures promise to facilitate near-zero energy compute and storage.

• Localized Cooling: Temperature and humidity are among the biggest factors affecting land use - from living environments to solar-power production to agriculture. While technologies attempting to reverse climate change on a macro-scale have largely faltered, there are several exciting approaches being taken to controlling atmospheric conditions on a more localized scale.

• Abundant Industrial Feedstocks: The hydrogen-driven DRI-EAF method of producing steel is showing great promise in decarbonising the steel sector, but less

Julie Greco at Energy Capital Ventures 

• Repurposing Fossil Assets: In 2022, even though we saw record-breaking growth in renewable energy, governments still poured over $1 trillion into fossil fuels to help ease the pain of high energy costs. Instead of building new infrastructure, there's a much cheaper and quicker way to transition to renewables—by repurposing what's already there, like oil rigs, gas pipelines, and coal plants for renewable energy production, storage and transportation. Technologies turning fossil assets into electric assets could reduce costs, accelerate deployment timelines, and extend the life and value of otherwise decommissioned assets.

• Energy-Water Nexus: By 2025, nearly two-thirds of the world's population could face water shortages. The growing interdependence of energy and water systems is becoming more critical as climate change and renewable energy development put increasing pressure on both resources. Integrated solutions and technologies that optimize energy and water management simultaneously can cut costs and significantly improve resource efficiency.

• Waste-to-Power: If more people took a trip to a landfill or a waste management facility, I bet we'd see a thousand new ways to repurpose waste! Agricultural, industrial, and municipal solid waste are packed with valuable resources that could power our economy. By finding low-cost, energy-efficient ways to turn waste into energy, we can boost energy security without digging up more fossil fuels—and cut down on waste at the same time.

Katrina Too at The Panacea Co

• Food Security: With agriculture making up 10% of ASEAN's GDP share and Southeast Asia exporting around a third of its agriculture and fish production, investing in the infrastructure resilience of value chains is a no-brainer. The region is vulnerable to floods, rising sea levels, and many other climate change-related activities. Saudi Arabia faces challenges such as an arid climate, limited arable land, and water scarcity. It currently imports 80% of its food products. The Kingdom's Vision 2030 has budgeted US$10b to boost domestic agricultural production and modern farming technologies and methods.

• Supply Chain Decarbonisation: Eight supply chains account for more than 50% of global emissions: food, construction, fashion, fast-moving consumer goods, electronics, automotive, professional services, and freight. Energy use, circularity, transportation, and distribution are prime opportunity areas for upgrades across these supply chains. In ASEAN, manufacturing is the majority sector (21% of their GDP), highlighting the importance of supporting the decarbonization of Scope 3 emissions in this region. Setting up local manufacturing capabilities for Saudi Arabia is a critical priority as the nation diversifies its oil-based economy. 

• Distributed Energy: At least 1.18 billion people live in energy poverty today. The reality of load shedding, grid unreliability, or the inability to afford electricity impacts the daily activities necessary for well-being and economic development (lighting, cooking, etc). Off-grid, decentralized energy, such as solar panels, hydro mini-grids, biogas mini-grids, etc., paired with programs like zero-upfront-cost installations or community energy programs, serve as solutions to reliable and sustainable energy. Both the Southeast Asia and Middle East regions are prime geographies for the rich tapestry of natural resources across wind, solar, and hydropower. Investing in efficient energy management systems can also increase energy efficiency through increasing demand-side flexibility and reducing CO2 emissions.

Jonas von den Driesch at SHIFT Invest

• Food and Agriculture: We need to produce more with less in the future and are therefore looking for companies that can help with that challenge. To achieve the same or higher yields with less ag inputs, water, etc.

• Green Industries: A lot of efficiency gains can be realized by helping industrial processes to be digitized.

• Mobility and Logistics: We look for solutions and technologies enabling the shift towards sustainable aviation.

• Energy Transition: Solar energy is an important part of our current and future energy mix and we look for innovative technologies to accelerate production.

Madelene Larsson at Giant Ventures 

• Datacenter Decarbonization: By the end of this decade, data centers are projected to account for 3-4% of global electricity consumption, presenting a significant climate challenge. Startups are uniquely positioned to address this issue. Beyond electricity, the extensive water usage by data centers is another critical challenge that needs innovative solutions. Plus, we will need green and effective cooling solutions, not just for data centers but for industrial and residential use too. 

• Enhanced Metal Parts for Climate Solutions: While advanced metal parts are already in use for space and aerospace applications, their manufacturing is often too expensive for broader adoption. AI can revolutionize manufacturing processes, making it possible to produce high-quality parts at lower costs. This can enable new lower-cost climate technologies or drive climate efficiencies of existing technologies. For example, superior components could reduce energy consumption by being lighter or more durable, thus requiring less fuel, cooling, or heavy support structures.

• Climate Resilient Agriculture: Increasing weather volatility poses growing challenges for farmers, who are already operating on thin margins. There is a pressing need for innovative solutions, ranging from enhanced crop varieties to precision agriculture techniques, including optimized fertilizer use, efficient water management, and more.

Chloe Coates at Zero Carbon Capital

• Reducing Enteric Methane Emissions: The methane emissions from cows are responsible for around 3 GtCO2e, or 6% of our annual anthropogenic emissions. 

• Energy Transition: Reliable and continuous sources of energy to complement low cost solar and wind, for example low cost, widely available geothermal.

• Decarbonising Steel: It's estimated that over 7% of our annual emissions come from steel production, and whilst there are a few candidates for replacing coke-fired blast furnaces for steel, we would love to see new ideas that could mitigate emissions in this sector. 

Frederik Hetsch at Audacy Ventures

• Hardware Grid Solutions: Hardware grid solutions refer to the physical components and systems that make up the electrical grid, enabling the transmission, distribution, and management of electrical power. These solutions are essential for modernizing the grid to accommodate renewable energy sources, enhance efficiency, and improve reliability. Examples include power electronics hardware, advanced conductors, storage systems, etc

• Electrolysers: With the recent surge in project announcements, we expect additional R&D investments into efficiency improvements and in modularisation/scalability, all of which are critical for lowering the Levelized Cost of Hydrogen (LCOH). The cost reduction will be coming from both system design as well as component optimizations.

• Recycling Waste into Fuels and Other Products: the trends in recycling waste into fuels and other products are characterized by technological advancements, a focus on sustainability, evolving regulatory frameworks, and increased investment in infrastructure. Promising examples can be found in different sectors, including fuel waste recycling into new and cost-effective drop-in fuels.

Fernando Casado at INCLIMO Climate Tech Fund

• Powering the Grid of Tomorrow: As the global energy sector transitions towards sustainability and decarbonization, optimizing energy demand and supply, utilizing smart technologies to shift energy usage to times when renewable energy is abundant or prices are low will be key. This is especially important in balancing the intermittency of renewable energy sources like solar and wind to achieve grid stability. As more businesses and consumers adopt energy flexibility solutions to reduce costs and carbon footprints, this sector is expected to experience substantial growth.

• Technology-Driven Investments in Regenerative Agriculture and Restoration: Investment opportunities in technology applied to regenerative agriculture is expanding rapidly as the agricultural sector embraces innovation to enhance sustainability and productivity. Technologies such as precision agriculture, remote sensing and data analytics are transforming how farmers manage soil health, water usage, and crop yields. Companies developing these technologies, as well as platforms that aggregate data to optimize farming decisions, can help monitor soil conditions, enabling more efficient use of inputs like water and fertilizers while promoting regenerative practices like cover cropping and rotational grazing. This offers us, as investors, a chance to support the transition to more sustainable agriculture while driving efficiency and profitability in farming operations.

• The Next Frontier in Energy: Energy storage technologies are playing a crucial role in the transition to a renewable and more resilient energy infrastructures. The growing need for large-scale grid storage solutions, as well as the increasing deployment of distributed energy resources, opens up a diverse array of opportunities for both large utilities and smaller-scale residential applications. Investors can look into a range of technologies, from lithium-ion and solid-state batteries to emerging options like flow batteries and hydrogen storage. Investment in this sector goes beyond just hardware;  as it also needs to include software and systems for energy management, smart grid integration, and real-time energy trading platforms, all of which are becoming essential components of sustainable energy systems. 

Hayden Young at SET Ventures

• Battery Powered Cold-Storage Trucking: Traditional refrigerated road transport relies heavily on diesel engines, contributing significantly to global emissions. That’s why we have examined several solutions that enable refrigeration units to ditch diesel for electric power. What’s most interesting are the different architectures we’ve seen to electrically power these systems. Architectures like battery only, or a combination of on-the move generation like solar, using axle rotation, breaking energy and more.

• Profitable Green Energy in Multi-Tenant Housing: The multi-tenant housing sector is an untapped market for solar PV. While some properties have panels installed, making this energy profitable for landlords remains a challenge. This is largely due to regulatory complexity and the need for expertise in energy management which most small property owners don’t have. But as PV has witnessed rapid cost reductions and become more commonplace, we have seen several exciting solutions emerge. Solutions that enable landlords to sell the generated electricity directly to their tenants (and therefore see a good return) easily via a streamlined platform. 

• Effective Battery Upcycling: The rate of battery recycling is being vastly outpaced by the rate of electrification. Coupled with the fact that many current battery recycling solutions are manual, ineffective and often dangerous, and you have a huge problem requiring a huge solution. In response, we’re looking at companies that bring automation into the battery recycling process. More specifically, the digital technology providers that can adapt their solution to various battery designs and chemistries. Allowing them to build strong technical moats vs advanced robotics companies.   

Myke Näf at Übermorgen Ventures

• Aquatic Ecosystems Management: Advancements in the monitoring and preservation of marine and freshwater ecosystems, including their role in carbon sequestration.

• Data Center Optimization: Innovations focused on improving energy efficiency and integrating sustainable power sources.

• Climate Finance: Strategies to enhance investment in climate technologies and sustainable projects.

• Resource Recycling for Energy Transition: Solutions for the efficient recycling of essential materials used in renewable energy technologies.

• Geological Hydrogen: Exploration of hydrogen storage and its viability as a sustainable energy carrier.

Larissa Skarke at World Fund 

• Carbon Removal: The Paris Agreement calls for limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. To do this, we must cut new emissions and remove vast amounts of CO2 already in the atmosphere. By 2050, scientists globally predict that we will need to remove up to 10 gigatonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere each year. The carbon removal market allows for attractive investments both on the supply and demand sides and so investors can support the climate goals.

• Buildings: Buildings account for around 30% of annual CO2 emissions worldwide (13.9 Gt CO2e p.a.). Emissions from the operation of buildings (9.7 Gt) and embodied emissions from materials and processes during construction and renovation (4.2 Gt) allow for attractive investments to decarbonise existing and new buildings. Investment opportunities include: retrofit games, energy-efficient refurbishments, software, digital twins, and alternative building materials.

• Grid Enhancement: For a successful energy transition, we need to ensure that the grid is able to integrate and transmit renewable energy while dealing with the intermittent and variable nature of these resources. In addition, we must expand the existing grid to meet rising energy demand. We also need to implement grid enhancement technologies to improve efficiency, reliability, and capacity. Investment opportunities can be found on the hardware and software side, including dynamic line rating and flexibility solutions as well as energy storage solutions.

Ryan Grant Little, Angel Investor 

• Drones: It’s an unfortunate reality that wars are often what drive step-function innovations in military technologies which quickly make their way to the civilian economy. Through my involvement in Ukraine I’ve seen the mind-blowing progress in drone technologies over the past 2.5 years. These are now being made available as “dual use” technologies and we’re going to start seeing AI-boosted drones in remote sensing, crop yield management and in so many more applications starting now. 

• Ammonia Synthesis: There haven’t been major innovations in ammonia production since Haber-Bosch, which is a highly-polluting process, and annual demand is growing at 7%. WebMD founder / head of Neotribe Ventures Kittu Kolluri talked about why he wants to invest in this episode of my podcast.

• Sustainable Fashion and Biomaterials: As someone who thinks fashion is kinda dumb and unnecessary, but who recognizes what a massive climate impact it has, I’ve set a goal of investing in 6 sustainable fashion / biomaterials startups in the next 6 months. 

Ilena Mece at Kompas VC 

• ⁠Materials Discovery: Spart from being an expensive process, it takes decades to discover new materials needed for the technologies that are critical to achieve emissions targets, such as carbon capture, energy storage and hydrogen production. I am excited about advancements in AI improving our ability to quickly design materials with specific properties and characteristics, without needing to screen a massive research space. This eliminates the need for time-consuming trial and error processes in the lab.

• Critical Minerals Extraction and Recycling: We need critical minerals to power the energy transition from the lithium used to produce batteries, to the copper needed to upgrade the grid. Finding new ways of identifying rare-earth metal deposits and discovering more efficient extraction or recycling methods with lower environmental footprints, will be key to satisfy our mineral needs to reach net zero by 2050.

• Advanced Materials and Process Innovation for the Built Environment and Industry: Often overlooked from an investment standpoint, buildings and industry account for c.50% of GHG emissions. Developing innovative materials and processes with lower emissions intensity can help achieve significant reductions in GHG emissions. For example, using alternative binders in cement production or adopting novel glass manufacturing techniques can lower emissions per unit of output.

Iris ten Have and Thong Le Hoang at Visionaries Tomorrow

• Natural Hydrogen: Green hydrogen produced via electrolysis requires high energy input and is currently much more expensive than its gray alternative. Natural hydrogen is produced in the Earth's crust through geochemical processes and potentially offers a significantly more cost-effective solution than green hydrogen from water electrolysis.

• Concrete Recycling: Humanity produces between 3 and 10 billion tons of concrete waste every year. If we were to recycle this and replace primary raw materials, we could save up to 720 million tons of CO2e annually.

• Steelmaking: The steel industry is directly responsible for about 2.6 billion tons CO2e annually. Various exciting solutions to make this industry more sustainable are being developed, such as electric arc furnaces, direct reduction pathways, electrolytic pathways, and more.

Elisabeth Schrey at DTCF 

• Recycling Technologies: There are significant regulatory changes that drive commercial adoption.

• Carbon Capture: CO2 capturing technologies where it's fascinating to see the variety of startups and approaches emerging in the market.

• Industrial or Residential Energy Management Systems: A sector in which we see significant commercial traction already.

Jonas Bergqvist at Almi Invest GreenTech 

• Energy and Grid Technology: The urgency to integrate more renewable sources into our energy mix is evident as the traditional grid struggles with intermittent energy flows and reliability challenges. Our interest is particularly piqued by groundbreaking grid technologies that enhance energy storage and smart distribution systems. These innovations are crucial for stabilizing the grid amidst fluctuating renewable outputs, making them pivotal for widespread clean energy adoption. By investing in these technologies, we aim to smooth out energy production peaks and troughs, ultimately supporting the transition to a renewable-heavy energy landscape.

• Materials and Circular Economy: The continuous reliance on non-renewable materials significantly impacts environmental sustainability and leads to resource depletion. We are actively seeking startups that are innovating with sustainable materials—those that can be easily recycled or are inherently biodegradable—and processes that promote the circular use of resources. By championing these innovations, we aim to reduce waste, decrease emissions from production processes, and foster a shift towards a more sustainable, circular economy. This not only addresses pressing environmental issues but also opens pathways for new market opportunities and innovations in material science.

• Forestry and Ocean Technology: The accelerating rates of deforestation and ocean degradation pose grave threats to global biodiversity and climate regulation. To combat these issues, we are exploring investments in technologies that promote sustainable forestry and enhance the health of our oceans. This includes advanced monitoring systems and new methods for boosting carbon sequestration in marine environments. Supporting these technologies not only helps restore and preserve critical ecosystems but also provides dual benefits of biodiversity conservation and effective climate change mitigation, ensuring healthier forests and oceans for future generations.

Namratha Kothapalli at SpeedInvest

• Grid Infrastructure: As we continue to "electrify everything", we urgently need to modernize grid infrastructure to support the clean energy transition. Seamlessly integrated hardware and software solutions are essential to streamline interconnections, optimize grid management, and build a resilient system to meet future energy demands.    

• Reindustrialization: Amidst ongoing global geopolitical tensions, reindustrialization emerges as a focal point, reflecting both the optimism and contradictions of a crucial economic and climate transition. It centers on strengthening manufacturing, supply chain resilience, and flexibility, retaining and upskilling talent, restoring competitive advantage, and aligning with climate goals.

Karen Sheffield at Pachamama Ventures 

• Energy Transition: We need to accelerate electrification efforts across long duration energy storage and EV charging infrastructure.

• Sustainable Solutions for Data Centers: Their demand is rapidly growing and their environmental footprint should be reduced as much as possible

• Adaptation and Resilience: Adaptation solutions to help nature and human beings build resilience against climate change (water tech, desert tech, and other types of technology to map and track our natural world are included here, too)

Laura Fox at Streetlife Ventures

• Improving and Decarbonizing Middle- and Last-Mile Logistics: Freight is about 30% of transportation emissions today, and these emissions are expected to surge 30% over the next 5 years in the world’s top 100 cities (and double by 2050). In transitioning to electric and light-electric vehicles for this work, attractive categories for Streetlife Ventures include operations, management, and predictive maintenance platforms to streamline fleets, increase efficiencies, and lower operating costs. 

• Decarbonizing Building Operations: 60% of emissions in dense cities are from buildings, and - in developed economies - 70% of those emissions come from building operations. At Streetlife Ventures, we’re interested in solutions that offer novel financing solutions to this difficult sector, and/or offer outsized savings potential compared to upfront cost.

• Adaptation Technologies Given Climate Impacts Today: Globally, extreme weather events have led to a 500% increase in natural disaster hard costs since 2000, and threaten $4 trillion in corporate assets by 2030. To reduce these risks, we’re interested in decision enablement and intelligence platforms, physical interventions and products, and finance and insurance products. 

• Creating Cleaner, More Stable Energy Sources for Urban Areas: Tripling the global installed capacity of renewable power by the end of the decade is identified as the most important lever to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 2030. This is especially critical in American cities, where on average ~70% of energy is “dirty” (e.g., produced by coal or natural gas). The American energy grid is at its weakest (recently graded at a D+ by the  American Society of Civil Engineers), demand growth over the next 5 years is expected to be 10X that of the last 10 years, and regulatory complexity consistently delays new project development.

Felix Ferstl at Ananda VC

• Water Intelligence: Water intelligence is crucial as 90% of climate change will be experienced through water while water pricing does not provide accurate supply and demand signalling. Holistic data solutions for water quantity and quality are needed for resource insights, forecasting and management.

• IoT for Heavy Industry: Industrial manufacturers prefer improving efficiencies in existing processes over implementing new ones. We are excited about a combination of proprietary data (via IoT) and AI-driven optimisation, especially for heavy industry.

• Energy Flexibility within the Built Environment: Flexibility in the built environment is essential as the roll-out of energy infrastructure is exponentially growing. Linking assets with each other as well as the grid and enabling flexible energy trading gains more relevance.

Olivia Brooks at Founders Factory

• Coastal Resilience Technologies: I’d love to see more startups building solutions to help vulnerable coastal locations in the fight against climate change. This may be surrounding potable water, natural disaster defence solutions, or better infrastructure to adapt to climate change. 

• Chemical Clean Up Technologies: Helping remove chemicals/ contaminants from soils or water. This could be bioremediation solutions for oil spills, PFAs or toxic chemicals that harm humans and mammals. 

• Green Port Side Solutions: Finding ways of making port operations cleaner and helping with the infrastructure needed to make maritime greener. 

What’s Next: Come and surround yourself with some of these investors, and 100+ more at the HackSummit, the must-attend gathering for startups, scaleups, investors and corporates this winter.